


Someday I'll...Breathe Again...

by lisslynae



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Snape Lives, no ron bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 07:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2573087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisslynae/pseuds/lisslynae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her dress is green and silver, and the heels sparkle silver too, and green works better than red these days... it had needed time and high heeled shoes and pain and leaving and lying for them to fit so perfectly together.<br/>"I'm not the only one facing the ghosts that decide if the fire inside still burns"<br/>Sometimes winning a war hurts just like losing it, and there is nothing left but running, but there must be something to run to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someday I'll...Breathe Again...

**Author's Note:**

> If you can, listen to "Breathe Again" by Sara Bareilles before/during reading this. There are parts of it that fit the mood very well. The fic itself is not really something I can define, tbh. I hate that Snape died, and felt like he needed to win somehow, even if it seemed like he lost. And Hermione, for a little while, became Bellatrix Lestrange, and cast an unforgivable, and wielded her wand, and writhed and screamed and bled at Bellatrix's hand, and I find it incredibly hard to believe that she simply turned around and married Ron. Surely she carried more scars than the one on her arm. Because sorry or not, Ron left, and Hermione did not, and she knew pain that he could never understand, and Harry could not either, because it was pain she chose and brought upon herself, and sacrificed for.
> 
> Also note that the flowers later in the story mean something in the language of flowers, which you can accept or ignore at your leisure.

Years ago, though it feels like decades, heels were not really her thing. But years and time have changed so much. She takes a cab to the middle of the city, and walks, walks, to each of the shops. She has armloads of bags, a new dress and shoes, by the time she’s done. Her dress is green and silver, and the heels sparkle silver too, and green works better than red these days. She hears the chatter of people about a pianist, and decides a concert would top the evening off nicely. Friday nights are her favorite, even if she is not with someone. She rubs the tattoo on the inside of her arm. It’s stars and swirls, dozens of colors. Magic, the artist had jokingly called it, and not questioned the scar it covered. She can trace the letters still, and does as she waits in line for a ticket. She traces them over and over, and straightens as she does, because they won and no one tied her down. Not hatred, and not fame. It was an awful pendulum: one moment a…not-pureblood, the next she was golden, and she had hated it. People had begun to fawn and simper where they had cut and hurt and she had left. She had started with parents and ended with no one, and winning a war could hurt just as much as losing. No one else had known what she had lost, or could understand, and she had left. She takes her seat and reads the program. “Never speaks” the person behind her says. “He plays, pauses between songs, nods, and walks off. But he’s brilliant.” And that, maybe, is what draws people to the mysterious pianist. It makes her question why she came, though. She spent years with mysteries and variables, and this world, where things cannot be altered with muttered words and a flick of the hand, is preferable to more mysteries.

The lights dim, and she fastens her gaze on the piano. The man that sits there makes her heart leap to her throat. The lighting is odd. His hands, and the piano are in the light, but he is in the shadow. Anyone who had met him on the street would not recognize him. But she had leaned against him, her hands dirty and crimson, and held his life-blood in his throat, and it had not been enough. His hair is longer, and there might be silver at the temples that wasn’t before, but the long slim fingers look more at home on a piano than they had grading essays. Her eyes close, in anger or relief she is sure she will never know. She had let him die, she thought. Healing charms she barely knew had not been enough, and the dim lighting makes her hands look red and bloody, again. If she was not seated in the middle of a row, she would escape, but she will not stumble between people’s feet so she can not hear what is, in part, her triumph. She can almost make out the program, and the songs surprise her. “Clair de Lune” by Debussy, “I’ve Got Rhythm”, “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” then terrifying original songs. “The Serpent” surprises her, but not at all, and she can trace school days through, to teaching, to the serpent, in all her wicked glory. He did not know, then, who killed Nagini though. Every chord told that story—brave, foolish Neville had managed to kill the beast, and he had no idea. Between Mancini’s “Charade” and “Impromptu” by Chopin, there is “Seventh Soul” and she can feel the weight of a locket around her neck, and, if she closes her eyes, can feel her eleven year old self wrapped in the arms of another who also was part of a soul. The melody makes her skin crawl and her throat clench, and she shivers. 

Intermission was sudden, and blinding. To one side of her, the row cleared, and she is on her feet before she even thinks, but then she stops. She ought to do something, or say something, or possibly leave and try to forget. The name on the program is Henry Prince, and she sinks back into her seat, sweaty hands smoothing wrinkles out of the program. What she will do afterward occupies her through the second half. “Ghosts” is surprisingly lighthearted, actually the only one like it on the program, and Peeves would like it. Her wand is in a box at home, and she thinks that she could find it, if she had to. Instead, when the clapping is done, she slips through lax security and taps on a door.

“Go away.” And that, then, is why he never speaks. His voice is lower and scratchy, and almost grating, definitely harsh, possibly painful. She stands frozen, not sure what to do. The urge to automatically see him in teaching robes, and obey surges in her chest. Instead, she twists the knob and walks in, shutting the door behind her. She stands just in front the door.

“It was an excellent concert, Mr. Prince.” she says calmly, but her heart flutters.

He spins at her voice, still pulling off his tie.

She has only a split-second to decide what this will be, and advances with her hand out. “I’m Dr. Black. So sorry to rudely intrude, but I had to speak with you.”

He shakes her hand with all the solemnity of a first time acquaintance. “Very nice to meet you, Dr. Black.” His courtesy is foreign to her, as is the glance that takes in her green dress, and…approves. He gestures her to a chair, and she slides into it. “Doctor of what?”

She almost smiles, “Chemistry. I work with experimental drugs, Mr. Prince.”

“Henry.” he corrects. And he has been in the “real” world as long as she has, because he knows the significance of what she does.

He unbuttons his cuffs and rolls up his sleeves. His forearm is covered in swirling ink, tiny designs in it, and she can find a snake and skull buried in it. He does not look to her face.

“Call me Bella, then.” she invites, with flick of her hand that shows the colors on the inside of her arm.

Either the name or the tattoo garner the first real reaction from him, and onyx eyes met hazel for the first time.

“Bella Black?” he questions, folding his suit jacket and tucking it into a duffel bag.

“Who ever would guess?” she returns, rising. 

He shoulders the duffle bag, and surveys the room for anything left behind. A half-empty matchbook from a local hotel is on the table, and he pockets it.

“Dinner and drinks?” she invites, brazenness that she did not realize she had springing to the surface.

As they stand on the curb waiting for a cab, she offers him a cigarette as she lights her own.

They eat dinner at a tiny, dim restaurant, and talk like strangers do. It’s not awkward, either, because lessons, and tests, and life-debts later, they are, oddly enough, strangers and equals. It is thrilling to ask calmly about the other’s family, past, and future plans because the lies are more intoxicating than the wine. 

As they talk of the future, she playfully suggests that some day, once he retires, he should teach piano. His laugh is low, and sends a thrill up her spine.

“I think I would make an awful teacher.” he admits, as though it is a foreign idea.

She throws back her head and laughs, and they both laugh until she has tears running down her face. That is the closest to acknowledging history as they come. Instead, he tell her glorious fabrications of music conservatories in the Alps, and she returns with her university escapades, some of which, and he knows, did not occur in university.

They stay until the bar closes, savoring good cognac, and neither are drunk, and both are pretending. She should have been fuzzy-headed and surprised to wake up in a hotel, with someone’s nose pressed to her hair. Instead, she is clear headed, and horribly unwilling to leave like she ought. She shifts slightly, pulling her hair out of her face.

“Are you going to run away scared?” he questions, his voice bleary with sleep, but his sharp eyes opening and fixing on her face.

She bristles slightly. “No.” she huffs. “I’m a bloody adult.”

“There is the little lioness.” he observes drily. The green dress is across the room over a chair, and he glances at it. “I though she had become a snake all the way through.”

She grabs a pillow off the ground and props herself up. “Is talking about anything something we need?”

He pulls himself into a sitting position, sheet and blankets pooling at his waist. “Not really.” he sighs.

She scoots around behind him, bare legs bracketing him, and massages his shoulders, working her way up and down his back. The tension fades from him as her strong fingers work out the knots. She kneads the muscles at the base of his neck and skull, but freezes when her fingers brush the scar at his throat. She lays her hand over it, and observes distantly that it is longer than her palm. It has no reason to make her sad any longer, and there is no fear. Instead it makes her angry, and she pulls her hand away sharply, clenching her fist and willing herself to calm down. He twists to look at her, expecting tears, or for her to have finally realized how long, and how much she hated him.

She jumped up, yanking a blanket from the foot of the bed around her shoulders, and jerking open the shades so the morning sun shoots across the room. She stands in front of the window, wrapped in a white blanket, and she looks like a vengeful queen, or, God forbid, an equally angry version of her namesake.

He dresses in sleep pants and t-shirt slowly, hoping she will decide on her reaction. “Her…Be…” Neither name is right on his lips, though, save him! Bella is a great deal closer. “I’m sorry.” is what he settles for.

She spins and faces him, hair that was once frizzy and brown, flaring, and settling in curls that gleam almost red on her shoulders. “Sorry?” she hisses. “None of that, ever, was your fault! I could not help, I could not fix it, even when I knew the whole time!” Her voice rises to almost normal pitch, but she sounds absolutely frantic. “He wanted me to be him! He told me bits and pieces, and I did exactly what he did, keeping secrets and hoping I could manipulate everything to work out, and I couldn’t. He knew he had to die, and how, and I let it happen, and then did what he did.” She bared her teeth in the approximation of a smile. “I offered, dear heavens, I offered. I knew who was supposed to do it, and who he wanted to do it, and he wouldn’t let me, warded the door against me. And so many people died, because I could not…” She clenches her fists and her knuckles turn white, and enough magic swirls through her veins that when she shakes her head, the alarm clock on the bureau fades black and starts smoking. She registers the destruction, and the anger drains from her form. “I am so, so sorry.” She raises her hands, palms up in supplication, but she cannot ask for forgiveness for something she has atoned for.

He takes her hand, and runs his thumb lightly over the puckered scar on her arm. “Little lioness.” he hums softly, cupping her head to his chest. She raises her free hand and pulls his head down, meeting his mouth in a kiss, and trailing kisses down his jaw to his throat. Her lips, tongue, and gentle fingers all meet at the scar, and smooth over it, and it feels like an absolution as her lips meet his again, and her hand remains at his throat, and their arms remained joined, his fingers ghosting over scars, and her thumb where a snake and skull rest. It is as if they have remained in limbo for centuries, growing up, growing old, but without the chance to move on.

The blanket falls down her back, and his hand meets her skin and the rush is better than magic a thousand times over. They emerge for dinner, and she wears the dress that she had worn the night before, because neither of them are willing to change it, and she cannot, because her wand is in a box somewhere, and his, he thinks, did not survive the battle. They do not even mention it, though. The doorman on duty is the same as the previous evening, and with the camaraderie he must think all men have, he nods and smiles genially at Mr. Prince as they pass. Bella answers his lascivious look with a wicked grin that makes him drop his eyes.

Dinner is leisurely and slow, as if there is nothing keeping them from staying forever. But he is touring, and she has a job, and they part ways the next morning, trading cell phone numbers. She wants to be surprised when they meet at Christmas, and New Year, and when she receives flowers at Valentine’s Day, but she really is not. There is completeness and irony, and sometimes, in the quiet moments, she reflects on how different life would have been if she had not run. She had regretted leaving for a while, been worried about the way she was changing, but now, she feels as if all of her life had led up to this time of healing and being healed. In some way, they are opposites, and people stare, but his courage matches and overruns hers, and her cunning may be veiled in red, but she can match him full force. And the years have not changed them that much, which terrifies her. They never would have been if there had been no war, no sides, no guilt and terror. They would have remained as they were: distant by years and opinion, and some nights, she curls into his chest in near terror that this, too, will be taken from her. 

When they stand in front of a tired old pastor and trade slim gold bands, she holds a bouquet of red, white and pink camellias, edged with ferns. The pastor’s wife is on hand to witness the certificate, and she looks at them oddly. Bella, young and strangely fierce, with hair swirling at her shoulders, and ink spiraling from wrist to shoulder, bared by a green and silver dress that falls to her knees; and Henry Prince, who looks almost worn, and cannot disguise the gray that gathers in his hair, and he looks down with obsidian eyes that harden at the woman’s gaze. 

Having a child would be begging for disaster. They are not foolish enough to think they would have a child without magic—half-blood and mudblood they may be, but even though they long ago rejected it, magic still simmers under their skin, and it would be a perilous inheritance for anyone, and a child with his father’s nose, and mother’s hair would find it less of a legacy, and more of a curse.

It should be a surprise when they are found, but decades later Bella’s hair has faded to salt-and-pepper, and Mr. Prince stoops, and piercing green eyes and long red hair are less terror than they might have been in years past. “Hermione” is like a foreign language now, and the introduction of Henry and Bella make green eyes swim in confusion and hurt. They had not thought that far ahead, perhaps, yet it hurts less than it should. The conversation is no less awkward than Bella expected. Age has not mellowed her husband, not that she would want it, and both childhood friends and she left childhood long ago. There is little that can be said, either. Pain and regret are not enough, and they do not regret what the Master of Death and his mistress would have them to. As red and black fade in the distance, she wonders what he hates more. That she left, or that her husband is alive. She looks up into his face, and knows what he thinks. He looks almost surprised when she laces her fingers in his, but if that moment facing plaintive eyes had been a choice, it was one she had made years before standing in a bar, just before their lips met. And she had been wearing green and silver, and as they parted breathless, she had realized that it had needed time and high heeled shoes and pain and leaving and lying for them to fit so perfectly together.

**Author's Note:**

> Please Review!
> 
> If someone was interested, I would be willing to try prompts in this verse, or any other that I am familiar with.


End file.
